IELTS Speaking Band 9 Conversation and Tips

so what happens when two ielts teachers come together to have a conversation practicing ielts speaking questions well not only do you get some great band nine language but you also get some amazing tips which i think will surprise you come and find out more [Music] hi this is keith from the keith speaking academy um here to help you speak better english give better answers and get a higher score on the ielts speaking test so today it's my great pleasure to be here today with ho kin dat also known as dat who is an ielts teacher from vietnam and he has a very successful facebook page you some of you may know ielts with datio as well as a youtube channel and he also gives classes in in vietnam so we've come together to have a conversation about different ielts topics and basically this is in effect an ielts speaking mock test right but it's done like a conversation so you'll notice every question i ask is an ielts speaking question but the way datio answers and the feel of the the test is very conversational and this is really really important right i've given thousands of tests and the most successful ielts speaking tests are the ones that feel like a conversation where the student is able to speak in a natural way like it's a conversation this is very hard to do but it's something i want you to notice as you're watching and listening to the conversation that we have today right so in effect it's an ielts speaking test but without part two right we decided not to do part two because it didn't feel a natural part of the conversation um i mean can you imagine right if you're having coffee in starbucks with your friend and you're talking about you know what did you do at the weekend and oh by the way now i'd like you to talk about this topic and you're like what what are you doing and you've got one to two minutes why you stop what are you doing it's not a natural thing you'd do over coffee so we missed out part two but we wanted to show you some great language so band nine level language and the way that you can do this through through natural conversational english so what you'll get in this video you'll see three different topics at the end of each topic i will be picking out some of the great language that you can also learn to use and then also after we've finished the conversation we carry on talking about learning english preparing for ielts and some really nice tips and ideas to help you do that okay let's get started great so oh the first question i need to ask is how do i pronounce your name oh you can call me da or daddy oh it sounds kind of funny but yeah but just call me dad i think that's that's my real name dario is more like a nickname that my friend gave me but i think it's cute that's why i chose that for my channel right fantastic it's a great name i like it datio but i'll call you that that's fine um keith that's right exactly with that strange sound so many people struggle with yeah keith um so i'm based here in spain where where do you lived at um i'm currently living in saigon or people would call it ho chi minh city but i prefer tagon because it's kind of reminiscent of the past you know yeah yeah indeed so is that your hometown or is that is your hometown a different place um it's uh it's my hometown actually i was born and raised here and uh i actually have been living here you know my whole life uh i think i know i know that i did move to singapore to study for a few years and then i came back here but my life it doesn't feel very different from before so so yeah i i'm living here currently right and what what do you like about saigon or ho chi minh city oh um i feel pretty fortunate to be living here because um i got you know i got access to pretty much any amenity that you can possibly think of right and it's very modern it's very convenient to live here and um i'm a foodie as well so you know like i love eating so i have a passion for eating trying different cuisines and saigon particularly saigon has you know a variety of cuisines and i can try as many as many kinds of food that i can think of right so you've been in that city since you were born has that city changed over the years um over the years you mean over the last 10 years over the last 10 years 15 years yet uh i i didn't really you know pay attention but the most striking change is probably the fact that it has gotten more polluted and hotter so much harder than before um i think it's the same situation for a lot of mega cities that are growing um but saigon definitely has a lot more residential you know areas um uh you know apartment complexes and skyscrapers so i think that's uh it's kind of a nice thing to have but at the same time um the infrastructure cannot really uh you know accommodate that many people and i think it's a good and bad thing and also it's getting more polluted over time um because of the you know the volume of traffic on the road as well so i i really hope that you know in the future something should be done about um you know the congestion issue over here so that would definitely help with you know the air pollution problem as well right very interesting great so let's have a look at some of the great band 9 language that dat is using here to talk about hometown first of all i noticed he said it's reminiscent of the past that's lovely reminiscent lovely word reminiscent of means reminds me of the past great i was born and raised here now we could also say i was born and raised i was born and bred here meaning i was born and grew up here so nice language this is a binomial born and bred born and raised lovely language next we've got a great example of what i see as kind of building blocks to make more complex sentences right so datio says i've got access to pretty much any amenity you could think of look at the blocks here right now a simple lower level student may say i've got access to all amenities right the amenities of the facilities um that you may get in a in a city right maybe a the library the shops the shopping mall the gymnasium all of these amenities right so i've got access to all amenities then you could add pretty much i've got access to pretty much all amenities and then you can add another block i've got access to pretty much any amenity you could think of right can you see the building blocks are making more complex sentences it's not it doesn't have to be strange unusual tenses this is also very very nice language moving on he uses the word foodie nice informal english very good i'm a foodie a person who loves eating loves food and notice this sentence right the infrastructure cannot accommodate that many people so again nice language the infrastructure refers to the roads the bridges the buildings so the infrastructure of the city cannot accommodate that many people um here meaning that the roads are on on the space is not enough for that many people right it can't accommodate this restaurant can't accommodate 100 people there's not enough space really nice language overall i notice he's using you know a wide range of vocabulary very flexibly right we're talking about hometown he talks about infrastructure mega cities residential areas skyscrapers amenities right clearly huge flexibility to talk about this topic also notice any pauses are not for vocabulary any pause that he makes is actually just for the idea and again this is natural band nine speaking you can pause just to think of an idea that is absolutely fine and finally let me just address this question because a lot of people say when we are asked about hometown is that the place where we live or the place where we were born right the short answer is your hometown is where you were born right but also it doesn't matter that much right the examiner first doesn't know if it's true or not and secondly doesn't care the point is we're talking about a town and a place where you have some experiences so don't get too anxious or worried about oh which city should i talk about right yes it should be the place where you were born um but if if you want to talk about the place where you live now then you could as well it doesn't matter that much right as they say don't sweat the small stuff let's carry on with the next topic now what about you and your your weekends so what what do you do at the weekends um well i don't know if people know this fact about me but i'm self-employed i don't work for other people so i don't have really clear boundaries between like a weekday and a weekend but um you know i try my best to schedule some down time on downtime on the weekend to um you know hang out with friends catch up with them you know grab a coffee together because i love coffee um so yeah i of course we all need to relax sometime right so that's what i tend to do on the weekends but if works calls for it i i sometimes i would have to spend the whole weekend just working on my deadlines so yeah right right so what about what about last weekend what did you do last weekend let me try to remember um well it was like just a typical it was just a go weekend like any other weekend so i usually so i think i started my day with uh how do i say this uh so i started my day by finishing some of the tasks that on my to-do list and and then i just grabbed coffee grabbed her coffee with my best friend and just you know took it easy uh spent some quality time with him right so that's what i did i think what about most people in your hometown i mean how do they spend the weekends typically oh people in my hometown like people in saigon as far as i'm as far as i know i think vietnamese people are really big on you know spending time at cafes and drinking coffee in the morning especially on saturdays and sundays uh with either their family or friends and i'm no exception what else do they do um well a lot of youngsters and even older generations they hang out at the mall as well um because you know vietnam saigon in particular is you know is so warm so people tend to seek refuge in in those hours you know that are air conditioned and do a bit of window shopping or drink tea coffee or have lunch in those malls i think that's a lot of people but that's what a lot of people do here yeah nice and if you've got any plans for next weekend um next weekend i don't know if it's gonna be very different from this weekend but um most likely i'm gonna be doing the same stuff i i do this week but considering the fact that i'm kind of up to my neck at the moment in deadlines i think i'm gonna spend my next weekend working on my deadlines before i can uh think of taking any time off you know right you're a busy man because i try to keep yeah brilliant so let's have a look at some of the language and also some of the tactics that that is using in fact let's begin with some of these tactics right so he does sometimes self-correction and that's really good right if you make a mistake um and you you realize just correct yourself straight away um and he makes a very this is a native speaker kind of mistake he says i need to schedule some downtown oh down time right just mispronounce the word downtown and downtime um perfectly natural but instantly just corrects himself as he goes as a native speaker would do the other thing he does is he creates some thinking time right um i think when i asked him about last weekend he said oh let me try to remember let me try to remember giving himself some time to think brilliant good tactic also similarly he asks himself the question right like you're thinking um what else do they do oh yes right so you're almost asking yourself the question native speakers do it absolutely great good tactics to gain time to think ielts you really need to get you know you need time to think of ideas everybody does so these are ways to do it what about the language well some very very nice you know i i would say that is a band 9 speaker and some great language here he has this informal language often with phrasal verbs right hang out with friends right spend time with friends catch up with them right to get up to date with what they're doing um some idiomatic expressions i note i noticed um if work calls for it so if it's necessary for work right if work calls for it then i'll stay late i'll work longer right if it's necessary for work if work calls for it lovely up to my neck in deadlines neck i'm up to my neck in deadlines i have too many deadlines i'm up to my neck in work i'm up to my neck in bills to pay maybe right very very nice idiomatic expression now another key thing i want to point out is in part one in the test there is very often right quick changes intense so quick changes from the present tense to the past to the future and this is deliberate to see if you can use different tenses flexibly and quickly right so we started in the present talking about present habit and things that dat said were they seek refuge in those malls they seek refuge which is nice language right means that they look for shelter shelter from the heat because it's so hot in saigon or ho chi minh city it's so hot that they look for shelter in the air-conditioned shopping malls but the key thing is it's the present tense right they seek refuge in those malls they do a bit of window shopping lovely language right window shopping where you don't actually spend money but they do a bit of window shopping so clear simple present tense but then notice the switch when i talk about last weekend he thinks but then he says you know oh i grabbed the coffee i took it easy switches fluently into past tenses with nice connection as well grabbed uh grabbed a coffee right take a coffee or took a coffee took it easy took kitteezy took it easy well that has a more american accent right took it easy um but the connection is the same with both of those and then when we switch to the future right what will you do um he does he uses going to with the present continuous tense right and most likely i'm going to be doing the same stuff brilliant and what's more he makes the contraction of going to ghana right i'm gonna be doing i'm gonna be doing the same stuff fantastic very flexible use of different tenses and that is a key thing to look out for in part one i'm interested in in vietnam and the clothes in vietnam because i think you have some quite interesting clothes in your country because i've been to vietnam tell me a bit about the kind of clothes people wear there um do we wear in vietnam it depends on what occasion we're talking about right so i don't know if i have a translation for all the traditional costumes that we wear but um normally when we go out on a normal day probably i see people wear jeans t-shirts uh shirts just the usual that you would see on the street when do people wear the traditional kind of clothes oh like ow yeah i think you've heard of this right yeah um when okay one situation i can think of is when uh like female students they have to put on aoi uh during the first day of oh during monday on each monday of the week so i think because they have to it's sort of the rule the regulation in a lot of the schools in vietnam for females to put on aoyah but it's sort of unfair because like the guys the the male students they wear just the same uniform right and i have no idea why and i see people wear aoi uh when they during ted or some big bigger festivals in vietnam right because at that's time for them to take photos and just show off on you know social media so uh looking traditional um i think attracts a lot of attention right and do you think it's um you know a good idea to have a obligatory school uniform for school children oh school children i suppose that that would be a good idea because you would need to be able to identify who is a student at your school so i think having like requiring students to wear uniform would do the trick and also for to create a sense of community you know if if you're wearing uniform you'll feel a sense of belonging to that community and especially if you come from a really prestigious school you would want to feel like you belong there and you would want to show that to the whole world so i think wearing uniform you know it has a few advantages right what about adults i mean how do you feel about adults wearing uniform in in the workplace should adults be forced to wear uniforms in the workplace um this is kind of interesting but i feel like it shouldn't be made man mandatory because for example if we're talking about uh front desk workers like a bank teller right if you're serving customers you have to meet with customers on a daily basis then sure um i think wearing uniform is is uh advisable because you would want to project this air of professionalism to clients in order to build trust with them right so wearing uniform for those uh staff is kind of essential and expected but if you're working in the back office you know you're in charge of just the business operations side um i think your i think your productivity doesn't really depend on you know looking professional so i don't think that should um those staff should be made to wear uniform because i don't think it serves uh it serves any function right right good point do you agree with this idea that you can judge a person by the clothes that they wear they usually say we usually say don't judge a book by its cover and i think there's some validity to it but it's not always accurate because you know in society we tend to judge people quickly by the clothes that they put on and i feel like it depends on the profession as well for example uh if you're a salesperson you need to kind of make a good impression with your client because there's no other cues for them to judge you whether you are successful whether you are trustworthy so looking presentable and professional and smart is is essential in this case right but it doesn't necessarily mean that you are successful or you have a you know you earn a very lucrative income by looking smart and looking you know dressed in a blazer it doesn't equate with that right but for other mega rich people like mark zuckerberg he's always dressed in like simple and plain clothes and he's one of the you know the most affluent individuals on earth so i think that it's not an accurate metric you know clothes are not an accurate metric to measure uh you know a person's uh worth yeah very interesting that's great very good conversation about clothes brilliant i'll stop kind of the intense questioning there oh thank you so in part three we looked at the topic of clothes right um so first of all again i think a very good tactic and a very good tip for part three is to give lots of examples and dat does this really well examples help you develop your answer be more specific and so bring out a wider range of vocabulary right for example for example when we were talking about um judging people by their clothes says well for example if you're a salesperson and then he goes on to elaborate um or the opposite he says if you know a lot of mega rich people like mark zuckerberg they dress in very simple clothes so he's giving lots of examples to develop his answer really important in part three vocabulary um again i mean at band nine you're using a very wide range of vocabulary great sense of collocation and style to express precise meaning and that does this i mean have a look at some of the things he said requiring students to wear a uniform would do the trick lovely expression right meaning that would work well right it would do the trick it does the trick it works well to do that make a good impression good collocation a prestigious school prestigious meaning a reputable or esteemed you know having a good reputation project an air of professionalism right to look like you are professional looking presentable you know that well-dressed well-groomed looking presentable have a lucrative income right so being well paid or profitable and not an accurate metric good collocation accurate metric metric being when you measure something it's the standard by which you measure it so a metric of being wealthy maybe your car if you have a house maybe the clothes you wear these are all different metrics so the language the vocabulary is great i think the there's idiomatic expressions there are collocations and precise meaning also notice the phrasal verbs again right to show off on social media phrasal verbs are very natural spoken english getting the right ones especially with two prepositions to show off on social media really difficult but done really well overall fluency is great right i mean there's fluency over long sentences and the ability to develop topics as i mentioned with examples linking sentence after sentence the cohesion and coherence is really solid very very nice i'll just mention a couple of other things which i think are worth talking about one of them is the translation of your local language so talking about clothes that wanted to use um a local word right a vietnamese word and he said i don't know if i have a translation for the typical costumes we wear and then he went on to use the word right that is absolutely fine you can use one or two words in your own language if there isn't a translation then there probably isn't a ready translation just make sure you're making the meaning clear and it's absolutely fine right so in this case i thought that was perfect a perfect opportunity often clothes food drink plants trees titles of films and books we don't have a translation in english so just say it in your own language and just make it clear what it is you're saying another interesting feature of natural spoken conversation for native speakers is what we call a restart is where you're you're saying a sentence and in the middle you kind of stop and then you change and then express it in a different way it's absolutely fine to do this right um that his example was i see people wear this when the during tev or some big festival so he was probably going to say i see people wear this when the tech festival happens but then he changes to say i see people wear this during tev which is the new year festival um and that is natural native like speaker you can do this it's absolutely fine you want to avoid the hesitation the um um uh uh right not that but just changing mid-sentence um is absolutely fine lovely well done dat for me without a doubt um he's speaking band nine level english but also clearly he's his understanding of how the test works and some really good tactics and tips that you can also follow let's move on so i hope you can see from that conversation right the importance of natural conversational spoken english in the test and the importance of relaxing in the test because this allows you to get into the flow and be much more natural you're going to go on now to watch the next part of our conversation and first of all dat talks about his feelings about the test or the conversation um and those aspects of natural english as well as we discuss the balance of formality and informality in the test right it's a good question right how formal should you be in the ielts speaking test let's have a look absolutely yeah i mean did it how did it feel for you did you feel under pressure or did you feel kind of relaxed when you when you frame it in as a conversation it feels a lot more a lot easier for me to you know to perform actually like i was really a lot more relaxed and i i expressed more emotion and just my intonation it varied a lot more than when i took the test the last time and i was in an exam mode and then i was like very strategic about it and it just didn't feel natural so this time that's interesting because i i do i try and speak quite a bit to students about being natural when they speak um for that very reason because a you get into the flow but b you have better intonation you know i see so many students who go into exam mode and as soon as the question comes is i want i live in honolulu and it becomes like a robot because they get so tense and and it doesn't help you because your intonation and your your pronunciation falls because of that oh i have a question for you because uh some examiners are really against uh informality in in an io speaking exam so i'm not sure if my style because i received a comment before say uh saying that i sounded a bit too chummy in an exam and i should be more formal right that's interesting um i think to an extent that's true that the students need to be aware of a sense of formality so maybe the idea of chatting to a friend over coffee is not quite right but i mean chatting to maybe a work colleague over coffee i think having the natural english but without so so not using slang so not saying hey dude nice to see you mate how are you you know you don't be using slang words like mate and dude um because they're not your mates they're a professional in their field and you're in an interview with them so i think there's a certain level of formality um but i think it's more reflected in the language so you're not yeah you're not over familiar with them um you know i wouldn't pay compliments and say oh it's a nice jacket you're wearing where you know it's so it's it's it's a fine balance i really think it is a balance but yeah i agree with you to a large extent in this next part of our conversation um dat and i go on to discuss some tips for preparing for ielts speaking and looking at what's really important right what you really should be focusing on as you prepare for ielts speaking in addition that asks me some questions about my experience of learning a second language and i talk about in particular my experience with chinese and taking exams as well for different languages that i've learned let's listen in and find out more how i mean what about you with with with you personally i mean learning english and preparing for ielts what what's your approach and strategy it's more of like in vietnam vietnamese will have the same bathe in the language i don't know if that's the same in english so like immerse yourself in the language yeah immerse yourself uh so i didn't really sit down and cram um you know english study from a book or you know whatever i tend to watch tv shows a lot of shows and just pick up all the natural expressions and the mannerisms and the way that you carry yourself when you say certain expressions and the kind of emotion that you have to express so all of that i think i picked up from movies and shows um but then you need a lot of time to be exposed to that kind of material but for students a lot of times they don't have that kind of luxury right so they need to get certain score over the course of three months or even a month so it's impossible so i think that's what they they lack but in order to be an effective user user of language of a language i think putting in years of exposure would probably create the best result you need to get a perfect scope for listening and reading and in order to do that being good at is not enough right you need to know the strategy so uh it's more a matter of like familiar familiarizing yourself with the tests and um just being really strategic when you do certain parts of the test like in writing you need to follow a particular format and then speaking you need to know what the examiner is looking for and um i'm getting myself more aware you know like forcing myself to to be more aware of those criteria right that's how i got i push it to pushed it to 8.5 right interesting so i for you that the the most important bit was the foundation of the language having a really good um strong foundation in the language that you got through as you say bathing yourself in english and then the the kind of the knowing the exam and the tips is almost like the the cherries on the cake it's kind of the the the less important bit but still important to know how to do the exam right i'm just curious like are you learning any second language at the moment and do you have the same experience as i did um so at the moment i'm not actively learning second languages but i do speak second languages um so i speak french spanish and chinese as well as as english and i think with all of those languages i've been through tests i've had exam experience i mean when i did learning chinese which was my latest language as i lived in china i i did the hsk um which is the chinese did you get a hsk six i i know i got an hsk i got level three which is kind of the pre-intermediate almost intermediate level um but i had to prepare a lot but i i spent a lot of time years learning chinese and then like for a month i prepared for the test um getting used to the the how the test works and what are the techniques for the test um and that helped a lot it was really important but i mean my teacher was very realistic she said you're gonna get hsk3 if you want a four you've got to put in another year another year of study and getting your language level up because your level's not high enough which was great i thought okay that's clear i know that so and i did the hsk3 and then i kind of stopped studying because life took over i was busy at work there was so much going on in my life i'd had a new baby and it was just i didn't have time to study chinese so i kind of accepted i'll be at that intermediate level and that's the way the position i'm in and i'm still there even though i still speak chinese i still practice chinese um i haven't got any better like in the last eight years i've been i've been at the same level for a long time oh so true how challenging it is to learn a second language especially as an adult and once you start working but it's beautiful it's great fun and it just opens up your world right when you can speak other languages so great i hope today that you know you've not only seen some great bandline language um but that you've also learned the importance of being natural in the test as well as also being a little bit strategic as well i'd like to say a big thank you to to dat for joining me today it's been fantastic great fun do go and check out his facebook page and his youtube channel he teaches not only speaking like me but also reading writing and listening so you can get some great tips over there if you are in vietnam then also check out the link below because he teaches in vietnam as well which might be interesting for you thank you very much dad and thank you to all of you for spending this time with us and listening today i hope you've enjoyed it take care my friend bye bye [Music]

Channel: English Speaking Success

Views: 329,603

Rating: 4.9461102 out of 5

Keywords: ielts speaking, ielts keith, ielts speaking tips, ielts speaking band, ielts speaking band 9, band 9 ielts speaking, band 9 speaking test ielts, band 9 speaking sample, ielts speaking test, ielts speaking practice, ielts datio học phí, ielts with datio speaking, ielts speaking conversation topics, ielts speaking conversation sample, ielts speaking interesting conversation, ielts english speaking practice conversation, band 9 speaking

Id: kfTPkg5FZkg

Length: 41min 5sec (2465 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 20 2021